A computer program designed to predict the Major League Baseball season projects the Kansas City Royals to be the worst team in the American League in 2017.Baseball Prospectus released its PECOTA projections on Tuesday. The system foresees the Royals winning a mere 71 games.Important caveat: PECOTA has been wrong before. In 2015, PECOTA thought the Royals would only win 72…
When the air gets dry and the wind gets cold, my skin responds by turning parched and — it must be said — a little crusty. By Groundhog Day, I’m a flaky, ashen mess, and no amount of liberally slathered drugstore moisturizer can save me. I must seek more drastic measures.Nothing turns my cold-weather complexion around faster than a facial….
The Lawrence Arts Center’s Nine Forty Live series has showcased innovative local and regional musicians for the past five years. But its reputation perhaps leans on tried-and-true singer-songwriter bookings more than it does on classical or concert music. The series is open to all genres, but you’re less likely to run into John Cale than you are to hear Grant…
Instagram handle: @olearythere Hometown: Tecumseh, MichiganCurrent neighborhood: Crossroads. Living the loft life!What I do (in 140 characters or less): In my free time I inspire people to travel to places where movies were filmed, and at my real job I get people excited to visit Hotel Phillips.What’s your addiction? Ice cream. Plain vanilla or a Brownie Bling Pothole from Sheridan’s…
Side by Side by Sondheim is a departure from Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s typical lineup — in fact, the musical revue is a replacement for a “brand new” musical previously intended for this midwinter slot. Instead, artistic director Eric Rosen announced “a dazzling and unforgettable night” of Stephen Sondheim works.On the “glittering evening of music, comedy, and song” (say press…
Sustainable, regional fish would be a surprise culinary obsession for any KC chef — let alone the grandson of KC Masterpiece founder Rich Davis. But Calvin Davis says his love of freshwater fish — now in abundant variety thanks to new channels of farming and cultivation — has a lot to do with his upbringing.“I grew up on Stockton Lake,…
Here’s Missouri’s new governor in D.C., hobnobbing with the super-rich and the famous. Here he is in his state Capitol, berating lawmakers of his own party. Now he’s down in southern Missouri, bashing “insiders and politicians” while shamelessly politicking. He’s on Twitter. He’s on Facebook.Eric Greitens is everywhere. And everywhere Eric Greitens goes, he tosses a grenade or two before…
TAMKO Building Products had a problem.The Joplin, Missouri, company’s roofing shingles, according to consumers in multiple states, sometimes fell apart well short of their 30-year warranty. A Missouri man named Lee Hobbs bought TAMKO shingles in 2005; by 2013, they were warped and curling. Same with Jonesburg United Methodist Church: Rainwater was leaking onto its pews just six years after…
A complicated economic development deal in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed under the weight of its moving parts.As Pitch alumnus Steve Vockrodt reported in The Kansas City Star last week, the city is working with a private equity firm to untangle an office building in the River Market from the bad decisions of the past.The building, 300 Wyandotte, lost its main…
Bernie Sanders will be the keynote speaker at Washington Days, the annual convention of the Kansas Democratic Party, later this month. The event will be held at the Ramada in downtown Topeka on Saturday, February 25. “We’re incredibly excited to have Sen. Sanders as our keynote speaker for this year’s Washington Days convention,” says Kansas Democratic Party executive director Kerry Gooch…
Yes You Are — the Kansas City indie-pop quartet that features Kianna Alarid, the former bassist and lead singer of Tilly & the Wall — were featured in a Super Bowl ad last night. The Pepsi Max spot aired during the game and showcased the band’s newest single, “HGX,” which only just debuted at the end of January. The band’s…
On the heels of Gaga comes another big tour announcement for 2017: John Legend will appear at Starlight on June 13, along with Gallant. He last wooed us in 2014 at the Kauffman Center, and in the meantime has released Darkness and Light. Tickets go on sale at noon this Friday, via Starlight’s website. Sign up in the members section of…
Lady Gaga is keeping her army of backup dancers handy: Fresh off her monster Super Bowl appearance yesterday, she has announced a world tour that includes a stop at the Sprint Center on November 15. She’s touring her 2016 album, Joanne, but we imagine any arena show will be packed with her hits and all of the glorious camp involved…
Allies of public education are beating the bushes for one more GOP U.S. senator willing to stand up for kids and families and vote against confirming mega donor Betsy DeVos as the nation’s education secretary.Just one gutsy senator is all it would take. Democrats are united in opposition to DeVos, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine,…
In January, the big guns came out to play. Among new videos issued over the past month, we got hip-hop from Mac Lethal and Stik Figa; punk rock from Red Kate and Mr. and the Mrs.; and indie from Emmaline Twist, Chris Meck and the Guilty Birds, and American Slim. The songs are killer, with visuals to match, so you’re…
Six days ago, President Donald Trump signed an order that immediately prevented refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Virtually no respectable person outside Trump’s xenophobic goblin bunker agrees with this policy, much less the deeply incompetent manner in which it has been rolled out. The only way to characterize it as a success is…
Fire hollowed out a two-story brick building in the historic 18th & Vine Jazz District early Thursday morning. Kansas City fire fighters put out the blaze, which jumped a vacant lot and damaged a second empty structure.The fire started at 1816 Vine Street, the former Security Loan and Investment Association, a black-owned bank that went into receivership in 1929. The…
Riff RaffRiff Raff is either an artistic genius or a ridiculous prankster, depending on how you perceive the Houston rapper born Horst Christian Simco. For the most part, the grill-wearing, cornrow-haired guy who walks around like he’s the star of a reality show about moon-worshipping celebrities seems content with his complicated existence. His latest album, Aquaberry Aquarius, is brash and…
The last Hammond B-3 organ was manufactured more than 40 years ago, and to this day no other musical instrument matches its sound. It can dance with excitement or wail in soulful delight, and its voice spans every genre of popular music — jazz, blues, gospel, rock, R&B and funk. Among the masters of the instrument is Kansas City’s Everette…
The Trump administration’s proposed budget is a right-wing hit list of the old school, including as it does the oft-recited wish to defund the National Endowment for the Arts. So when you hit the streets for First Friday on February 3, think about how much culture springs from the NEA — as well as from the similarly endangered National Endowment…
Thursday, February 2Last year’s Café Society, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart as young lovers in the 1930s, is minor Woody Allen. But Eisenberg is still the best modern-day Allen stand-in, Stewart is radiant in a movie that gorgeously re-creates Hollywood’s classic era, and Steve Carell turns in a more subdued performance than usual, playing the studio magnate who comes…
Twitter handle: @saruhliHometown: TopekaCurrent neighborhood: LawrenceWhat I do (in 140 characters or less): I write for MTV Founders; I freelance web and graphic design; I run a global nonprofit to fight sexual assault.What’s your addiction? Organization. I have a bullet journal for monthly to-do lists, a planner for deadlines and another notebook for everyday notes and errands. The key to…
“Someone told me the best way to make a million dollars with a board-game store is not to open a board-game store,” Mason Hans tells me one afternoon, inside his board-game store. “But gaming — and community — is my passion. It gets people off their phones or computers for a while, and there’s a game for everyone.”Hans, who is…
